


Shadows

by merelyafigment



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: (could be viewed as either, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, depending on your chosen glasses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/merelyafigment
Summary: Ainsley is investigating the missing pieces of her memory, and decides to make a quick stop to cultivate a new source -- a certain energetic M.E. (Set during S2 Ep4 "Take Your Father To Work Day")
Relationships: Edrisa Tanaka & Ainsley Whitly, Edrisa Tanaka/Ainsley Whitly
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's Notes** : I haven't rewatched S1 since it aired, so my grasp of canon is a bit shaky, and I'm not entirely confident in my details and character voices. But I love the idea of these two, and wanted to delve a bit into Ainsley's head before the new episode airs.

Ainsley (a Whitly, not a hidden Bright) needed to know. She always needed to know. Possibly this need stemmed from always being kept in the dark. (Albeit a different kind of darkness than the one blackened with blood those members of her family who were closer to her father were kept in.) But this need of hers wasn't on her list of things she was interested in investigating, and that was a nice long list that would always keep her occupied. (Even if she had to keep adding things to it, new scoops to chase, mysteries to unravel, always.) 

Speaking of blood and family... (Ha ha. Yes, both were wound through her family in ways beyond the norm.) 

She had an explanation. 

_Malcolm._

Malcolm did it. Malcolm had said. By any account, Malcolm, who proudly wore his eccentricities, his darkness, his impressive blade collection, on his metaphorical sleeve would be the most likely suspect between the two of them. But. Their family was all secrets, locked away tight. Their killer was a surgeon, a healer, not an obvious suspect either. 

Their father -- their father probably thought Malcolm was capable of it as well. Maybe at one time, maybe even still, Ainsley wondered, too. 

But there was a problem. Many problems, really. Little threads to pull, other options, other narratives to chase. 

(There was blood.) 

It was blackness. The blackness of not remembering. Whatever had happened was gone from her sight, from her mind. A hole, a trunk, a bricked over room. 

But not all of it was anymore. One flash of a rug, held by her beaming mother, brought the real flash -- blood on an unimpressive knife, not the kind Malcom decorated with. 

Oh yeah, and on her hands. Hers. 

Spattered blood. She couldn't -- Malcolm had cleaned her up, just like her own mind had scrubbed everything else away. (To protect her from trauma? Well, it had left other trauma in plain view before, including a boyfriend bleeding indirectly from her actions, so why turn only this one black and unknowable?) 

Even if she could slowly, carefully, work a source -- an M.E. perhaps -- to find out what the spatter pattern on _her_ may have indicated, using made up stories about a story she was chasing, it didn't matter. It was gone, off her skin, and clothes that were most likely obliterated completely. (Malcolm was very smart, and very good at his job. At murders and evidence.) Gone from her memory now as well. 

Speaking of an M.E.... had to start somewhere, didn't she? Every story started with the tiniest crumb. Couldn't hurt to get close to her brother's work friend. One who was currently working a story of murder that might get her closer to her father to ask him some of her questions. An M.E. who might also one day be close to the story of Endicott, if his body and trail ever wound their way back from their wonderfully misleading distant place. 

Cultivating sources was always helpful, and it was high time she got closer to this one. Just a short trip, before she set up camp outside the gates confining the man she truly needed to talk to. That would be difficult. This would be easier, and maybe she'd get some information on the current case at least before she stood outside in the chill. 

Usually? No one would let a reporter near M.E. Tanaka. Ainsley just had to find the right in... and pretend she was there looking for Bright, her brother, and not a story. (Or a mystery.) What do you know? She'd just missed him. Actually, she knew that, but the person who'd pointed her to the M.E.'s domain (where he'd last been) hadn't. 

Pretty much anyone could hear her entrance, shoes striding on stone, into the morgue. Dr. Tanaka turned immediately from where she was closing the heavy metal door. 

Hm. Wonder if that was her current story or a new one being tucked away behind there. 

Dr. Tanaka did not look annoyed at the intrusion, as Ainsley painted on her best smile in greeting. It was one from her reporter toolkit that was meant not to seem like her tenacious investigative side at all, but rather the side that engaged viewers, and the aforementioned sources. The human behind the job, reaching out. 

Tanaka's smile was maybe better, brighter, because it was real, wide but a little quirked and uneven. 

"You're very bright." Her voice held the same vibe as her grin, really. Just with a little more quirk to it. "I mean, it's pretty grey in here and all --I mean I like it, allows me to think but also -- Bright. You're very --" Dr. Tanaka pulled off her gloves with a practiced snap that perfectly filled the space of her interrupted words. Just so she could lightly smack her hand to her forehead. It was a gesture, not a real punishment. "I'm dumb. It was dumb. You're Bright's sister. Though you go by Whitly now that I think about it--" 

It's like she was always half in her head, tilting here and there as she thought and spoke. All at once. Hands moving with their own little stops and starts, with her words. 

Ainsley could work with this. 

If Malcom took more uppers (waaay more uppers) and held more sunshine in the greyness that he also liked, without the blackness of their past, he might be a little like this. 

Ainsley's grin shifted away from the ones in her toolkit. 

"He talks about me?" She did not sound small and young, like a little sister overlooked because she didn't remember their darkness the same way, and her nightmares didn't require restraints. Yet. The curious little sister was still hidden beneath. She may not remember the darkness, but she had layers to hide behind, just like her mother. Maybe even more, even better ones, because she didn't remember it all. 

Dr. Tanaka waved a hand energetically, swatting her question away. Animated, very much so, but genuine. Her layers were awkward and hasty and you could see right underneath. She wasn't hiding, maybe -- it was about blending in. Or trying to anyway. 

It didn't work. Ainsley didn't care. Blending? Was overrated. She did it all the time. So did her mother. (So had her father.) Blending just meant smoothing parts of yourself away to get closer to people. And it could hide so many reasons for wanting to do so. It was fairly refreshing to be around someone genuine, not hiding, failing at blending in. 

Ainsley didn't get guilt twinges from getting close to people for information, it was her job. Her calling. Investigating underneath the layers required getting low and dirty sometimes. So, no, she didn't twinge. But if she did... she maybe would've. 

Instead, she focused on the task at hand, who was currently still doing most of the talking. (Not a bad thing. Never knew what you'd find out when you just let people talk.) 

"What? Oh no, not much of a personal sharer, our Bright. Or again, your Bright. Never mentions you." Dr. Tanaka was the one who was bright, really, her tone and lively eyes. Before a small pause, a realization of words that might wound coming too late, her animation lost for downcast gaze and a softer tone. "Sorry." 

Yep, still genuine. Amazing. Ainsley probably didn't even need her toolkit, with the doctor seeming just as truly welcoming and friendly as she was petite and reportedly smart and capable. (Ainsley listened, always, and did her research.) 

"It's fine." Ainsley waved off her concern easily. "I'm aware of how my brother is." She was, and didn't let anything drag down the light ease of her voice. 

She knew her brother. Maybe he didn't talk about her, but he protected her. Whatever... whatever the answers were, all his frustrating sidestepping and putting her off -- she knew the source of it. It was his misguided way of protecting her. One day maybe they'd all stop trying. (To keep her in the dark.) 

"Then how do you know who I am?" Ainsley asked questions just as easily, with just enough talk-to-me connection, just enough piercing seriousness hidden underneath. 

Dr. Tanaka blinked, behind her glasses. She looked a bit concerned, her tone shifting seriously to show the same... why was she concerned? What did she know? 

"You know you're on the news, right?" 

Oh, that. Of course. It didn't explain why she had said it so seriously -- oh, _there_. That was a grin, small and tucked away quickly. She'd been teasing. The seriousness had been part of the joke. 

Ainsley laughed, and hated herself when she heard her mother at a dinner party humoring someone or other that she needed to humor, because otherwise it would make the night tedious and difficult. Easier to play along, charm and -- Ainsley hated it, for how it reminded her of that. As well as how it was also uniquely her own, she knew, having embraced the fakeness for herself. Really made it her own, indeed. Ainsley's tremor of relief that Dr. Tanaka hadn't been hiding away any dangerous knowledge was hopefully buried far underneath the return of her live on-air smile. (Endicott was still a mystery. Far from here. Dr. Tanaka knew nothing.) 

"Of course." Ainsley said the meaningless words, accepting the little joke with a little chuckle. Smile and charm. 

She was good at this. 

She was still good at this. 

... 

She let herself hate it, for a second, before she went back to tugging on threads, in the dark. 

That smile again, maybe a grin this time, from Edrisa-- Dr. Tanaka. 

Ainsley wouldn't-- she'd get close. Cultivate. Just in case. 

But maybe she wouldn't have to use her toolkit. Not much. 

Maybe everything didn't have to be fake. 

But just enough had to be, until she could see what was hidden in the dark.

***  
End


End file.
